Message Board Archives

“I was kidnapped outside of my store 10 years ago. On a busy Friday evening. My business was five months old. This image was taken in a hospital after my release on Mother’s Day. I had been beaten, blindfolded, gagged, hog-tied and held in a latrine in South Trinidad for nine days. This is what we look like. The victims of violent, unspeakable crimes. Before we resume our new ‘normal’ lives.

Ten years later. In the minute community of my shop:

Five customers have had a parent murdered, four of them in home invasions; two have lost husbands, both shot to death; another, a brother shot in his driveway; another, a mentally ill brother shot in police custody; another, a son shot outside of his fledgling business; a grandfather beaten to death with a brick; four raped; two kidnapped, a father and a brother; a father cutlassed in his home.

Lives stolen. From both the living and the dead. Surely no part of this resembles normal.

The general population lives in fear of becoming a victim of crime. What should be done? What is being done? Who shall we hold accountable?

Enough is enough.

This madness has got to end.”

“I’m sick and tired of the blame game between the political parties. How are you going to keep your population safe? We are not safe. This is an issue of national security. You (Government) have to have a plan. It is your job to keep us safe. Crime is a disease. You have to look for a cure. But nobody is doing anything about the root of crime.”

“The bottom line is that governments seem to be more interested in staying in power than keeping us safe... People will continue to do what they could get away with and with our sluggish judicial system and lack of confidence in the police, the criminal elements in this country are now powerful.”